Does anyone know a good voting rights attorney who will work for beer money? Because if I were a more litigious lefty, I'd be licking my chops at the prospect of a history-changing lawsuit. By suppressing any mention of political parties that, for whatever reason, do not hold primary elections, the Harris County Clerk's Office is effectively partisan in nature—and that's unethical at best, unconstitutional at worst.

Longtime HCGP apparatchik Alán Alán Apurim noticed something about the information presented on the HCCO's Harris Votes website. Well, to be more precise, he noticed what information is not on the site: that voters may exercise an option other than voting in a primary or abstaining entirely.

Apurim sent a message to the appropriate administrator at HCCO about correcting the oversight. From the resulting correspondence, it seems that the County Clerk's staffers need to be, shall we say, deprogrammed out of the notion that our political activities must remain confined to donkeys and elephants.

​Of course, ours is by no means the only county in Texas guilty of such on omission, but Harris County is by far the most populous, with about one-seventh of all registered voters in the state.

​Here is Apurim's message to Hector DeLeon of the Voter Outreach Department, in its entirety, used with his permission, with only slight modifications to Apurim's idiosyncratic email formatting:

Dear Mr. deLeon,

Several nationwide polls have indicated voters by a 2/3 majority are dissatisfied with the performance of both Republican and Dem-ocratic Parties and would support having more political choices.

In the interest of all potential voters, it is imperative that they be fully informed of their voting options before the "major" parties' March 6 "Election Day" primaries. Texas laws passed by the two afore-mentioned parties have the apparent purpose of excluding so-called "third" parties from the ballot, and widespread publicity of a "primaries" election day, exclusive of mentioning the unfair advan-tage of holding the primaries before the dates allowed for signatures-collecting, and also informing them they cannot sign a ballot-access petition if they vote in a primary, helps them perpetuate the duopoly.

The state and national Libertarian Party is already on the ballot, but is likewise being overlooked by the Media and your office as being a consideration as opposed to voting in the primaries. The Green Party,like the Libertarian Party, does not hold primaries, and is concerned that those persuaded to vote in the primaries may, in ignorance of this law, not know they can support either of these political parties at their upcoming conventions, IF they don't vote in the "major" party primaries.

I suggest the following words (or some equivalent) be added to your advice on how to vote in the March 6 primaries:

"Voters interested in supporting any other political parties before the November elections by voting at their conventions or signing any petition for ballot-access (listing of that party's candidates identified with that party) must not vote in the Republican or Democratic primary."

This would be a fair and equitable way for the Harris County Clerk to give the voters an aware and truthful choice in upcoming primaries AND Libertarian and Green Party of Texas conventions.

Thank you, Alán Alán Apurim

Add to the question of "unethical" and "unconstitutional" the possibility that Harris County is ignoring the will of the majority of its adult residents. If not 2/3, at least half of the voting-age population perceives both corporate parties as inadequate. (Sorry I don't have a citation for the polls to which Apurim refers.)

​This was the best Mr. DeLeon could do by way of a reply:

Thank you for your email.

By law, the Executive Committees of each political party oversee the conduct of the Primary Elections [Texas Election Code, Sec. 172.111. b]. For this reason, as it relates to the Primary elections, your request should be address [sic] to the Chair and Executive Committee of each political party.

By the direction of your reply, it seems you entirely miss the point of my message.

You're telling me to send the message "to the chair and executive committee of each political party" — but obviously it is not in the interest of those parties to publicize the access to non-primary political parties. That is your responsibility, as an overseer of the conduct of the primary elections, to inform the voters as to what all their options are, especially when if certain actions (voting in a primary) will disqualify them from choices of which they may prefer, but may be unaware exist for them after the primaries-option.

State law on conduct of the Primary Elections [Texas Election Code, Sec. 172.111. b] (that you have cited as an excuse to not fulfill my request) regards conduct of primaries by political parties that have them, but has nothing to do with the responsibility of the County Clerk's office and its accurate publicity to voters of their options in voting.

By publicizing only the Republican and Democratic parties' primaries as if they are the ONLY options aside from not voting at all, you are doing an inequitable disservice to the Libertarian and Green parties and, as I said in my original message, by acting as an in-formation media, in doing so while not mentioning other options you are giving advantage to the Republican and Democratic parties, acting to "perpetuate the duopoly"!

I provided a short non-partisan statement that could be used to inform voters of the fact that they have an option to vote in other parties' conventions (prior to the November election) or petition for ballot-access ONLY if they do not vote in the Republican and Democratic parties' primaries:

"Voters interested in supporting any other political parties before the November elections by voting at their conventions or signing any petition for ballot-access (listing of that party's candidates identified with that party) must not vote in the Republican or Democratic primary."

I sure do miss AAP's whimsical missives. Whaiever happened to the 770 group?

dbc

14/2/2018 08:20:41

HCGP stopped paying for the 770 listserv after switching the website to NationBuilder. NB can do email blasts, but it doesn't really have an old-school email exchange. I'm trying to get members to join a Googlegroup as at least a temporary solution.

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